Chapter 33
Tristan
“Well, this wasn’t on my bingo card for today,” Harper says as she hands me my phone and wallet. I’ve been released from jail, and now I’m getting all my things back so I can go home and try to get my family to let this drop.
“Yeah, mine neither.”
She smirks. “I always knew you’d be the first to end up with a mug shot.”
“Really? I would’ve bet on Dad.”
“No, it was you. You have that defiance inside of you.” She looks at Jimmy as he enters the holding area. “You’re dead to us.”
He rolls his eyes. “If you think I wanted to do this, you’re wrong.” Jimmy turns his attention to me. “And you did this. You know something. There’s a part to this puzzle that I don’t know, but I sure as fuck will.”
Yeah, yeah. If he were any other cop, I might be worried, but I’m not. He’ll guess and probably get really close, but I’ll never confirm it.
“Sounds good. I look forward to your theories that will be wrong,” I say, putting my wallet in my back pocket. “Also, I broke your toilet.”
Jimmy huffs. “How?”
“I kicked it.”
I turn and walk out, heading to the car with Harper laughing.
When we get in, I lean my head against the headrest, sighing as I do. All of today comes crashing around me, not that it didn’t while I was sitting in the slammer. Something I never thought I’d be thinking, but here we are.
“You really fucked up this time, Tris,” Harper says as she pulls out onto the road.
“You’re like the third person to tell me this. I wasn’t sure that it was really true until now,” I say with sarcasm.
My sister ignores me. “I’m serious. You let their horses out? What were you thinking?”
Oh, I see. She actually thinks I did it.
Good, that’s the best-case scenario here. If she actually thinks it’s because I was sleeping with the woman I…I stop myself there. I will not go down that path.
After Lark left, all I did was think about her. Why she came. That she came. The way our very convenient sexual relationship has started to become something else.
If Harper knew where I really was, this conversation would probably be much more hostile.
“I clearly wasn’t thinking.”
Harper huffs. “I really didn’t think you did it.”
Because I really didn’t do it. That said, she doesn’t suspect I’m sleeping with Lark, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Speaking of Lark…I grab my phone and text her to let her know all is well.
Hey, I’m out. Thanks for coming by, it does mean a lot to me.
Jenna Talia
I’m mad at you.
Seems to be a common theme.
Jenna Talia
No, I’m serious. I’m pissed. You should’ve let me tell the truth.
As much as I love being lectured by the women in my life, I’m going to ask you to hold off until tonight. Then you can berate me all you’d like.
Jenna Talia
At least you’ll be prepared for it then.
But I’ll see you tonight?
Jenna Talia
Yes. After I work with a horse and try to keep myself from wanting to throttle you.
So any normal day. Got it.
Yeah, what man doesn’t love hearing all the ways he’s wrong? Also, a thank you wouldn’t have killed her. I do have a permanent record now thanks to her.
“So what happens now? Are you released into my custody?” Harper asks with a grin.
“It’s a slap on the wrist. I’ll go see the judge, pay a fine, probably be warned not to do it again. It’s not as bad as it sounds.” At least that’s what Jimmy tried to explain when I was tuning him out after Lark came.
However, if Lark’s family wants to press charges for damages, then I’m in a whole heap of shit.
My conversation with Jimmy was a fun million-question session where he got a total of zero answers back from me on why, exactly, Lark showed up.
“Sadie seems unfazed by it all, so that’s good. Before you lose your shit, when you get back, Veronica gave her permission to take Cloud out to the pasture to roam. We all thought it was best to have her doing something that would make her happy.”
I don’t like it, not one bit, but she literally just watched her dad get arrested. So there’s that.
“Did you tell her not to ride him?”
Harper looks over with that glare only little sisters can give. “Yes, moron. We did. She won’t ride him. Not that it makes a lick of sense, but then again, you’re a man and a Stone at that.”
“Oh, and the women of this bloodline are sane? Might I remind you of the time your ex broke up with you and you glued Post-it notes all over his car?”
She smiles like the absolute sociopath she is. “Better than keying it.”
“Yeah, when he ripped each one off, it left a dot from the paper that didn’t come off. So much better.”
The car looked like it was polka-dotted for a week until the glue finally lifted.
“And still, you were the first family member arrested,” Harper notes.
Arguing with her is like pissing into the wind, never a good idea. I lean my head against the window, pull my hat down over my eyes, and feign sleep.
Right as I’m about to drift off, a hand slams against my chest.
“You’re not going to sleep, dickhead! I want to know what happened!”
I lift my hat and stare at the lunatic that is my sister. “I feel bad for any man who decides to date you.”
“Please, I’m a freaking dream come true for any man.”
“Yes, all men like their women unstable.”
“Right? I’m glad you finally see it,” Harper says as though I wasn’t being completely sarcastic.
“Nothing happened. I was in the jail cell, listening to Jimmy drone on and on about why I should tell him the entire story. I told him what I know—” That’s a lie.
I told him nothing, but I’m not about to admit that to Harper.
She may be a little bit unglued, but she’s smart.
She can see right through bullshit, so I have to be careful with what I say. “Now I’m going home.”
“I still can’t believe he arrested you.” Harper glances over. “He’s literally your best friend.”
I shrug. “He had a job to do.”
“Couldn’t you at least have run or something? I could’ve used the entertainment.”
I chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
“How about we don’t have a next time?” Harper shakes her head and then pulls onto the dirt road that leads to our house.
“I’ll do my best.”
She sighs. “I know there is more to this story, Tristan. You aren’t an idiot—well, you are, but not about horses.
You would never do this—any of it. You wouldn’t cut fences, flood buildings, move hay bales for fun.
There’s literally nothing fun about any of it.
So who are you protecting? And if you didn’t do it, why the hell do they think you were on their property? ”
That’s the thing. I’m not protecting anyone other than Lark at this moment. However, if I admit that it’s not me doing it, she’ll piece it together. Maybe not that it’s Lark, but that it’s someone.
By the grace of the universe, we arrive in front of the house, giving me a clear escape route. Harper sits in the driver’s seat, staring at me, waiting for the truth that she’s never going to get.
“Because I did it. All of it,” I lie—knowing she doesn’t buy it—and get out of the car.
The front door flies open, and Sadie runs out, halting the argument I was having with my sister.
“Daddy!”
I open my arms, and she wraps hers around me. At least I know that my criminal record won’t be an issue for her.
“You’re back. How was jail?”
I chuckle. “Fine. I broke the toilet.”
Her face scrunches up. “Eww, nasty.”
“It’s fine. Gives Uncle Jimmy something to do other than harass me.”
“Are we vowing to hate him for eternity?” she asks.
I shrug. “We’ll see. At least for a week or two.”
“Deal. I got to take Cloud out to the pasture. Are you mad?”
“No, not at all.”
I place my hand on her shoulder and walk with Sadie back into the house as she tells me all about her afternoon and the joy she had being with her horse.
I’m standing at the edge of the ridge, waiting for Lark, who is now an hour late.
I debate texting her but decide against it. For all I know, her family suspects something, and she’s dealing with it.
The ridge is truly my favorite place to come to. It’s where I can think in peace and where I often find the answers I’m seeking.
Tonight my mind is caught in a constant loop about what the hell I’m doing.
This arrangement was stupid from the beginning, but now it’s a goddamn bomb waiting to drop.
The fallout will be devastating, and we’re going to hurt everyone around us. My sisters will never understand, which isn’t exactly something I give a shit about. I don’t live my life for them, and I do believe in time, they’d come around—could be when I’m dead, though.
Lark isn’t like her brothers, and while the women in my life are headstrong, they also are kind and forgiving. Well, maybe not Fallon, but I would never let her hurt Lark.
It’s really her family that would have the issue with it. I don’t necessarily care about myself—I care about her.
Then my mind circles back around to the fact that it’s more complicated than that. I can’t endure letting myself fully give in, only to end up losing her. She could get sick, hurt, walk away. I won’t fucking survive it.
I have to think about my daughter and what it would mean to her if I admit the truth about how I feel already.
What was supposed to be a feelingless fuck has become more. So much fucking more.
I don’t even know when it happened or how. I was being careful. I knew not to let my guard down, and somehow I did.
The sound of hooves pounding the ground grows louder, and I turn to see her. Lark dismounts, ties her horse to the stake, and marches toward me. Anger flashes in her beautiful eyes, and I brace.
“I almost didn’t come,” she says, hands balled at her side.
“Because?”
Lark looks up at the sky, shaking her head. “I’m so angry at you.”
“For what? Protecting you?”
“I don’t need your protection, Tristan!”
I scoff at that. “The hell you don’t. Your plan was what? Come to the jail, tell them that we’ve been sleeping together for weeks and that’s why I was on the camera?”
“Yes!” she screams and shoves at my chest. “Yes, you stupid idiot.”
“Oh, I’m the idiot? I think telling them would’ve been a damn mistake.”
“Why?” Lark asks, her hands landing hard on my chest. “Why would it be a mistake? We’re not anything, right? Who cares if everyone knows we’re fucking and that’s it? We’re just a simple transactional relationship. According to you, we’re nothing, and I can never be more than just this.”
Those words slice through my chest, anger spilling out as I stare at her. “Does this feel like nothing?”
If it was nothing, it wouldn’t feel as though I’m being torn apart.
“No, it doesn’t, but I’m not a child. I’m able to fight my own battles. You taking the blame, letting my family think you did it…how is that okay? I was ready to tell them about us.”
She says that, but it doesn’t make sense.
“Weren’t you the one freaking out about someone seeing us a few days ago?”
Her green eyes flash. Exactly.
“Weren’t you the one who told me how your family would never forgive you? So you may not want my protection, but you have it. I won’t let you bear the brunt of their anger.”
“Why do you care? Why do you give a single fuck what my family says to me?”
“Why do you think?” I ask, my words exploding from my chest, coming out more hostile than I intended.
“I don’t know!”
“Yes, you do!”
“Say it, then! Tell me why, Tristan,” Lark demands.
“I fucking love you! That’s why!”
As soon as I say it, I feel a heavy weight on my chest. Fuck. I can’t love her. I refuse to love anyone. I turn from her, running my hand through my hair as I try to collect myself. My heart is pounding, and I try to think of how to fix it.
I could lie to her.
I could tell her I didn’t mean it.
I have to do it.
“Lark,” I say her name, but she’s just staring at me. She’s searching for something, and then, instead of joy or happiness that should come from someone professing their love, sadness fills her eyes, and a tear rolls down her cheek.
“But it’s not enough, is it?”
She’s giving me the out that I am so desperate for. Yet taking it feels like a part of me is dying.
“It’s enough for this. It’s enough of a reason to let me protect you from your family.”
“Because you don’t want to love me, do you?” The heartbreak in her voice causes my own to ache.
We both know the answer to that. “I told you I couldn’t.”
Lark looks out at the ridge, wipes at her cheeks, and turns to me. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This. Us. I can’t because I love you, Tristan.
I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I fell in love with you on this ridge, beneath the stars as we stared off to the west of a forever that could never be ours.
I thought”—she laughs once—“well, what I thought is irrelevant. I want to be loved, enough that you’d tell the world to fuck off if they had issues with us.
I want to have a man who will fight for me, for us, for love.
Someone who won’t worry about the future, because the present is worth all the fear. ”
I wish it were that simple, but it’s not. People love, they die, and families are left to pick up the pieces of their lives.
Lark walks to her horse, clearly done with this conversation. But I’m not. She grabs the saddle and climbs up.
I take the reins in my hand, keeping her from riding off. “You say that without having lost anyone, not the way I have. Without knowing the fucking horrors of what it feels like to live without that person. I can’t lose you, Lark. I can’t fucking do it. Don’t you get it?”
“So you’re afraid?”
I laugh once. “I’m fucking terrified! I can’t do it! I can’t live through another fucking loss. I won’t survive. Is that what you want?”
“You can’t do this,” she says, shaking her head. “You can’t live like that. It’s going to ruin you far worse than loving or losing me ever will. Why is it so hard? Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you let yourself be happy?”
She doesn’t get it. As easy as all that sounds, it’s just not possible.
“Nothing about loving you is hard. Hell, it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
It happened despite me fighting against it.
Losing you, or even the possibility of it…
I can’t take the risk. Then there’s all the other reasons we said why we can’t be together. How do you think we navigate that?”
“Together.”
I release the reins—and her—knowing that if I don’t let her go now, I never will. This is for her own good. I’ll never be able to love her the way she deserves, and even if we were together, her family would turn their backs on her, which I’d never be able to live with. “I won’t do that to you.”
Her lower lip trembles. “Then that’s that. You love me, but you won’t let yourself accept it? How does that work?”
It doesn’t, but I have to make it work. “This is me protecting you.”
“No, you’re protecting yourself. When you’re ready to love me out loud, you know where to find me.”
And then she leaves, and her loss is like a physical blow.